Saturday, January 12, 2013

Troops in Africa: Is this why we have a military?

In March, the United States plans to send elements of the Second Brigade, First Infantry Division, to Africa (under AFRICOM) to conduct over a hundred different missions in 34 nations, such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and training indigenous forces. (source: Washington Times) The Second Brigade is a heavy brigade equipped with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery, mind you, not a light infantry brigade or Special Forces unit. As a result of the deployment, their training on these systems in a wartime scenario will most likely suffer.

We are also a bankrupt nation, yet spending millions deploying portions of our military to areas that are not critical to our national security. Sounds to me like we may have found a portion of the national budget we can cut if our military has nothing better to do than hand out humanitarian assistance and wait for natural disasters in some far off land.

Our tax dollars need to instead be spent on our military defense, not on ambiguous blanket missions of doing everything except the defense of our nation. We need to get ourselves out of this recession/depression first before we should even consider doing a mission like that of the 2nd Brigade in Africa. The national debt is the biggest threat to our national security, not some non-existent disaster in Africa.

We must ask ourselves: Are the Armed Forces of the United States serving as the military force of the United Nations/World Government, or are they protecting America and its citizens?

As an organization, the US military is slowly being forced to reject its original foundation of the Christian faith and in its place accept humanism, as evidenced by the removal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy allowing for open homosexual behavior in the ranks. Even the mere presence of religion in military organizations is under attack from organizations such as the Military Religious Freedom Foundation who espouse a perverted interpretation of the First Amendment.

A key component of humanism is relativism, where there is no absolute truth. This has in part led to the development of a manual in Afghanistan that blames our own troops' insensitivity to the Islamic culture for causing the green on blue violence in that nation, rather than blaming the true source--Islamic jihad.

We need to get our military back on track and fast. They are all over the world "chasing Indians," disasters, and handing out humanitarian assistance. They need to be focused on the one thing they need to get right--defending our nation against existential threats. They need to be preparing for war, and they need a clear vision as to who are the enemies of America. With the imminent reduction in the military budget, this becomes all the more critical.

As part of Gen. Odierno’s Regionally Aligned Forces concept, about 1,200 soldiers will deploy to Africa as early as March in an effort to place troops strategically around the globe to respond quickly to sudden challenges in hot spots such as Libya and to develop ties with the people and officials in host countries.

“It’s about us moving towards a scalable, tailorable capability that helps them to shape the environment they’re working in, doing a variety of tasks from building partner capability to engagement, to multilateral training to bilateral training to actual deployment of forces, if necessary,” Gen. Odierno said in an interview.

Amid budget cuts and with President Obama’s new military strategy downplaying the chances of another major land war, the Army has sought to maintain its relevance among admirals and generals in the Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa — likely places for the next flash point. When terrorists attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, no U.S. troops were close enough to help.

[...]

Ready, responsive

Beginning in March, small teams of soldiers from the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based in Fort Riley, Kan., will conduct at least 108 missions in at least 34 countries in Africa through mid-2014.

The missions could include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, training host-nation forces in marksmanship, first aid and other skills, and conducting military exercises. To prepare for these missions, soldiers are studying the regions and cultures of countries where they will deploy, and learning Arabic, Swahili, French and Portuguese.

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook Who is this man? U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. U.S. Supreme Court J...

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